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The sadly obligatory “Obama’s father was a communist” post

posted at 5:44 pm on April 7, 2008 by Allahpundit
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What does it prove?

1. Obama advocated the communal ownership of land and the forced confiscation of privately controlled land, as part of a forced “development plan”, an important element of his attack on the government’s advocacy of private ownership, land titles, and property registration. (p. 29)

2. Obama advocated the nationalization of “European” and “Asian” owned enterprises, including hotels, with the control of these operations handed over to the “indigenous” black population. (pp. 32 -33)

3. Obama advocated dramatically increasing taxation on “the rich” even up to the 100% level, arguing that, “there is no limit to taxation if the benefits derived from public services by society measure up to the cost in taxation which they have to pay” (p. 30) and that, “Theoretically, there is nothing that can stop the government from taxing 100% of income so long as the people get benefits from the government commensurate with their income which is taxed.” (p. 31)

Unless socialism is hereditary and/or the biographical details about Obama are all wrong and his father had some huge influence on him growing up, there’s nothing here except a few boilerplate quotes in his autobiography about being an idealist like his pops was. I don’t even like holding people to what they wrote in their own college theses; now we have to worry about congenital bolshevism? There’s plenty of material to suggest Obama himself is hard left without weakening the argument by holding him responsible for his father’s views. What am I missing here?


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I vote for relevant under the current state of knowledge about the man, i.e. that Obama is unknowable despite having written two autobiographies. He is knowable only through circumstantial evidence. And that evidence is: Barack’s wife is, in Tom Wolfe’s turn of phrase, a “rococo Marxist.” His pastor is a Marxist. His mother was a romantic Marxist. His mentor Saul Alinsky was a Marxist. And his father, an object of intense longing, was apparently a 200 proof Marxist. (The only associate who is not a Marxist is his friend Rezko, who is all about the buck.) Obama went from “Barry” — the name by which he had been known his whole life — to “Barack” as a signifier that he had thrown his lot in with his father. As if the point is lost on anyone, Barack writes a book called “Dreams from My Father.” Barack wants to make his father proud beyond the grave. And what would would make his dad prouder than all get out? Evidently 100% taxation and dispossession of European races.

Barack Obama is an intentional cipher. He votes “present,” leaves no paper trail at the Harvard Law Review, speaks in gauzy platitudes, etc. He’s flying under the radar so that people can believe anything they want about him. He’s a Rorschach blot. He’s asking us to project. Well, if Obama Girl sees rays of hope in that blot, I can’t fault others for seeing his hardcore Communist father in it either — because until Obama is clearer about what he actually believes, that’s as good a projection as any.
Yeah, a man is not responsible for who his dad is. Unless he takes responsibility by writing a whole goddamn book about how he longs to commune with his dad and feels as though he succeeded. Then the character and nature of the father becomes somewhat relevant.

shazbat on April 7, 2008 at 8:53 PM

The sadly obligatory “Obama’s father was a communist” COMMENT:

“In a style reminiscent of Robert Mugabe”

TheSitRep on April 7, 2008 at 9:36 PM

I don’t even like holding people to what they wrote in their own college theses; now we have to worry about congenital bolshevism? There’s plenty of material to suggest Obama himself is hard left without weakening the argument by holding him responsible for his father’s views. What am I missing here?

posted at 5:44 pm on April 7, 2008 by Allahpundit

You’re missing quite a bit, it would seem. It’s interesting that you bring up college theses. I believe you posted a headline with “zzzzz” in the title when Michelle Obama’s thesis was finally released, as if it had nothing to do with anything. And yet, in that thesis, she bemoans the statistically proven (by her questionnaires) successful integration of black Princeton grads into middle-class society. How is this any different from what she believes today, or almost as importantly, what her pastor of 20 years, Wright, believes? For them “middle-class” is a code word for white — and Michelle can’t help telling us that she’s never been proud of America — reminding us of the same angry, separatist black woman at Princeton. How has she evolved?

Then we have his father. It’s been said often enough on this thread that one of Obama Jr.’s books was dedicated to his father and that he proudly identifies with his father’s race and culture. Well, truth is, the father was no better than any other corrupt African politician that has fed off the fatted calf for years — courtesy of the West’s billions in economic aid — while his people were either slaughtered or starved. The guy deserted Obama’s mother to attend Harvard on a US benefactor’s dime, had three or four wives, wrapped himself around a tree in a drunken stupor and contributed zippo to the betterment of his people. Even forgetting the Marxism — this is someone to be emulated? Someone whose “dreams” should be celebrated?

Hey, nobody chooses their parents, and we all have things in our past we’d rather forget about, but Obama wrote three books to sugar-coat his re-invented history in cotton candy fluff for the consumption of would-be voters. And those books — happy day!! — paid off those tragically onerous student loans of which Michelle is fond of reminding us, so that the Obamas could buy themselves a mansion that they so richly deserved, and thereby help their downtrodden “community?”

So when one or another of the non-brain-dead media discovers his history isn’t exactly the way he described it — and that maybe, just maybe, this guy is a carefully constructed fraud — you feel the need to pooh-pooh it as “sadly obligatory?”

Allah, the guy’s running for President of the United States — not the local dog-catcher. It’s all relevant.

Nichevo on April 7, 2008 at 9:48 PM

“In a style reminiscent of Robert Mugabe”

TheSitRep on April 7, 2008 at 9:36 PM

Did you meant to say, “in a fashion reminiscent of Robert Mugabe”?

Buy Danish on April 7, 2008 at 9:48 PM

[Yawning loudly]….I’m sorry. Did I just hear a broken record?

Like father, like son.

Dr.Cwac.Cwac on April 7, 2008 at 9:52 PM

Oops, I meant to say did you [mean] to say… at 9:52.

Buy Danish on April 7, 2008 at 10:08 PM

Hey, it’s no big whoop…Is-lame-o communism has a nice ring to it.

Christine on April 7, 2008 at 11:05 PM

Whatever you do, do not connect the dots.

Connie on April 7, 2008 at 11:19 PM

shazbat on April 7, 2008 at 8:53 PM

Very well said.

Red Pill on April 7, 2008 at 11:37 PM

Obama in ‘08. Bring the Zimbabwe miracle to the USA!

Journalist, Filmmaker Discuss Racial Cleansing

by Marisa Kagan, staff writer
MAY 2, 2007 1:23 PM

Elliot Jaspin, author of “Buried in the Bitter Waters,” and Marco Williams, producer and director of the film “Banished,” came to SF State Tuesday night and presented their respective works, which recount the hidden history of the African-American racial cleansing that took place in America over 100 years ago.

Jaspin was originally assigned to go to Arkansas to report on a story about food safety. When he was there he stumbled upon an observation that would soon become a mystery to unfold. Jaspin noticed that there were no African-American people in sight and he could not help but wonder why that was. After doing some research, he found articles from 1912 that were about blacks fearing for their lives and fleeing Forsyth County, Ga., leaving their land behind.

“There were 1,098 black people in Forsyth, and only 30 after the cleansing. It was the largest [African-American] cleansing in America,” Jaspin said. He added that in a 1980 census there was only one black person living there, and today it is all white.

Williams did research on cleansing that occurred in Pierce City, Mo. in 1901, and Harrison, Ark. in 1905 and 1909. They found living descendants of black people who were banished, and found that the descendants desired reparations for what happened to their ancestors.

“Who had the right to tell any man that he or she can’t live there? It is not right,” one descendant from the film said.

According to Williams’ research, deeds to the land that was stolen from the blacks mysteriously became owned by the white people who took over the land without any record of the land being sold to them by the original black owners.

When an article was published in Pierce City that brought light to the racial cleansing that took place, a man called the paper and said, “Let old soldiers lie,” which turned out to be how most of Pierce City felt, and revealed a whole culture of racism that evolved as a result of the cleansing.

One man named James wanted to have his great grandfather exhumed from his grave in Pierce City simply to make sure it was really him. His family did not feel comfortable going there to pay tribute to him, and James wanted him to be moved. After the body was successfully identified and moved, James wrote a letter to the mayor of Pierce City requesting the city to pay for the bill to exhume the body, to symbolize the reparations descendants of the cleansing deserve. The mayor did not think opening his checkbook would make a big enough statement and refused to pay the bill.

“Finding the truth is enormously important to being repaired,” a psychologist interviewed in the film said.

There is a population of 12,000 in Harrison, Ark. and almost no African-Americans. According to a white man interviewed in the film, people move to Harrison for two reasons: “Good real estate, and the lack of blacks.”

A woman by the name of Aunt Vine was the last black woman to live in Harrison, and was awarded a scholarship in her name to be given to minorities to attend college in Harrison. However, there is no grave marker in all of Harrison that says Aunt Vine’s name on it.

“The living legacy in black expulsions is that we remain invisible,” Williams said about the lack of a visible dedication to Aunt Vine.

The German government has compensated thousands of Holocaust descendants for the war crimes that were committed, thousands of Japanese Americans have been compensated for being unjustly shoved into concentration camps, but, of the thousands of African-Americans that deserve reparations, only four have been compensated, according to the film.

“But it’s OK, because the conservative minority in Congress will stop Obama from doing anything about that stuff.” yeah, sure.

funky chicken on April 7, 2008 at 11:48 PM

So when one or another of the non-brain-dead media discovers his history isn’t exactly the way he described it — and that maybe, just maybe, this guy is a carefully constructed fraud — you feel the need to pooh-pooh it as “sadly obligatory?”

Allah, the guy’s running for President of the United States — not the local dog-catcher. It’s all relevant.

Nichevo on April 7, 2008 at 9:48 PM

Damn right. It also helps explain his ties to the communist cousin Odinga in Kenya.

funky chicken on April 7, 2008 at 11:51 PM

From WaPost review of Jaspin’s book:

it’s not enough simply to know that Americans once engaged in ethnic cleansing. We need to be shocked by that terrible truth, to read the stories and cringe at their cruelty. Only then, as Jaspin says, will we be willing to confront the question of how to secure justice for the families that were driven from their land in the early 20th century: to talk seriously of reparations for the victims’ descendants, maybe even of restoring land to its rightful owners, a possibility that has already caused consternation in a few communities around the country.

Sound familiar?

funky chicken on April 8, 2008 at 12:04 AM

The guy has shown himself, as an adult, to be confused about his own identity and very open to the influences of strong adult personalities. Why not believe he would cling to his father’s belief. The guy was raised a well to do white kid from Hawaii but morphed into an oppressed black man from Mississippi. He is not to be trusted and unfit for the presidency.

peacenprosperity on April 8, 2008 at 6:46 AM

The guy has shown himself, as an adult, to be confused about his own identity and very open to the influences of strong adult personalities.

I dont think he’s confused at all. I think he’s putting forth the image he wants. He is to whatever audience he is talking to, whatever that audience wants him to be. As a poster said, he has no paper trail, he has no legislative trail - he’s pretty much a blank slate who can say anything he wants to anybody and not be called on it. His confusion comes now when he does make a statement and the bloggers remember it and call him on it, he doesnt know what to say to make it “right.”
Allahpundit is wrong on this one. I think the fact that Obama’s father was a communist is relevant.

abcurtis on April 8, 2008 at 7:22 AM

What does it prove?

It proves that he lied about his father.

It proves that he misrepresents pretty much everything.

drjohn on April 8, 2008 at 7:24 AM

He can’t be close to his “TYPICAL” white family nor his typically Muslim Communist family, Hell, all he has left to hold onto is Jeriamiah Wright and his Trinity United church of hate whitey.

TheSitRep on April 8, 2008 at 7:33 AM

Ask David Horowitz whether the fact that Barack Sr. was Communist is relevant. I’d be curious to see what he’d say.

RD on April 8, 2008 at 7:38 AM

It doesn’t prove anything, except that he isn’t entitled to the benefit of the doubt when his own peculiarities come up. He worked as a rabble-rouser for Alinsky for example. Did he do it because Alinsky was a commie, and his cause commie, or because (insert mealy mouthed liberal excuse here)? Barak doesn’t deserve a break on this.

Spartacus on April 8, 2008 at 8:12 AM

“What does it prove?”
As much as anything,
it proves what he isn’t.
He isn’t what we want.
He isn’t what we need.
He isn’t what he says.

maverick muse on April 8, 2008 at 8:19 AM

Spartacus!

maverick muse on April 8, 2008 at 8:20 AM

I’m with Shazbat on this. This is for the Office of the Pres. OF USA. If there is even a minute chance, (the smallest chance for those of you in LIb land). He does not pass GO, does not proceed on to the Pres.OFFice.
If the Libs want to “releive” 100 yrs of guilt, including Sen.R.Byrd of the KKK, have them apologize to Sup. Court Justice C. Thomas for the next 4 yrs.

sbark on April 8, 2008 at 8:43 AM

shazbat on April 7, 2008 at 8:53 PM

Dude. Good stuff.

Sugar Land on April 8, 2008 at 8:57 AM

shazbat on April 7, 2008 at 8:53 PM

Right on.

bridgetown on April 8, 2008 at 9:01 AM

I’d rather focus on what the candidate himself thinks, although I believe it would be fair to ask him what he thinks of the policies his father advocated.

I’m more concerned with the kind of poor judgment that results in asking Susan Rice to give you foreign policy advice. “Sure, Senator, just let me get all this Rwandan blood off my hands first.”

DrSteve on April 8, 2008 at 9:06 AM

Wasn’t Obama’s first book titled “Dreams of My Father”.

Seems to me that with BHO’s connection to a black nationalist pastor, his socalist agenda and his friendship with former Weather Underground types etc…etc…, the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.

BrianA on April 8, 2008 at 9:34 AM

Being a communist to me is the equivalent to being a serial killer or a child molester.

Nothing could possibly be more vile.

Every day I learn something about Obama that makes me despise him even more.

NoDonkey on April 8, 2008 at 9:56 AM

There is enough wrong with him that we don’t need to go to his father for help.

right2bright on April 8, 2008 at 10:07 AM

Being a communist to me is the equivalent to being a serial killer or a child molester.

Nothing could possibly be more vile.

Every day I learn something about Obama that makes me despise him even more.

NoDonkey on April 8, 2008 at 9:56 AM

So if someone’s parent is a serial killer it makes them one too?

A Axe on April 8, 2008 at 11:09 AM

I guess I should add - I do not get along with my father at all. His political views and mine do not mesh. Why should I be held responsible for what my *father* believes?

A Axe on April 8, 2008 at 11:09 AM

Ace sez:

Incidentally, Allah Pundit finds the fact that Obama’s father was a communist to be irrelevant and furthermore an unfair rap.

I disagree.

The man has surrounded himself with radicals and stews in the same bubbling soup of crazy as Louis Farrakhan. He hangs out with terrorist like Bill Ayers. He courts black liberation “theology” firebrands, bigots, and conspiracy theorists as political (and not really spiritual) mentors.

Every politician is examined not just as to what he claims to believe but as to what he actually does believe but does not say so in an effort to appear more moderate and acceptable to the greatest number of voters.

If Obama were truly a moderate, it would indeed be irrelevant as to his dad’s hardcore socialism/communism. But given that Obama seems by all available evidence to be a fairly hardcore lefty/radical himself, it seems reasonable to inquire as to the nature of his political education and real political beliefs.

Given the cast of characters surrounding Obama, his dad’s communism is not merely an irrelevant biographical trivium. It seems that he’s devoted to many of, perhaps most of, his father’s egregiously bad ideas and intends to smuggle them into the White House in a Trojan Horse, or rather a Trojan Change Hope and Healing.

funky chicken on April 8, 2008 at 11:26 AM

- Communist Father
- Radical racist spiritual mentor
- Hate America wife
- Friends with unrepentent American terrorist bomber

This is Nostalgic Presidential Biography as told by The Simpsons.

eeyore on April 8, 2008 at 11:54 AM

Didn’t he write some sort of ode to his father?

roux on April 8, 2008 at 12:36 PM

Um…

baldilocks on April 8, 2008 at 12:43 PM

Why did he keep the name of a man who abandoned him?

Something odd there.

profitsbeard on April 7, 2008 at 6:32 PM

That’s a ridiculous question.

baldilocks on April 8, 2008 at 12:46 PM

Do you think the fact that his father, grandmother, half-siblings, etc. are all African has any effect on his world view? A lot of people trumpet that connection as a reason that he would make a good President.

But you don’t think his father’s political viewpoints can have any affect on him?

exhelodrvr on April 7, 2008 at 6:35 PM

No. My father is also an African. And a communist. And an atheist. I am none of those.

A person is not his/her parents–especially when the person wasn’t raised by them.

baldilocks on April 8, 2008 at 12:49 PM

Obama’s childhood mentor, Frank Marshall Davis, was publicly identified as a member of the Communist Party USA (CPUSA). The record shows that Obama was in Hawaii from 1971-1979, where, at some point in time, he developed a close relationship, almost like a son, with Davis, listening to his “poetry” and getting advice on his career path. But Obama, in his book, Dreams From My Father, refers to him repeatedly as just “Frank.”

DANEgerus on April 7, 2008 at 8:25 PM

Far more meaningful than the stuff about his father.

baldilocks on April 8, 2008 at 12:53 PM

“So if someone’s parent is a serial killer it makes them one too?”

If the son of the serial killer surrounded himself with all sorts of creepy people who had weird sex fetishes and weapons obsessions, wouldn’t you steer clear? Even if he disavowed serial killing?

Obama has surrounded himself over the years with Marxists and other far left anti-American lunatics. His disavowal of their politics is not sufficient. This man does not belong in the Senate, much less the Oval Office.

NoDonkey on April 8, 2008 at 1:35 PM

“So if someone’s parent is a serial killer it makes them one too?”
Not so that you could convict them, but if pops is a serial killer, and you seek out serial killers as friends, and you vote in ways that make it easier to kill serials, and harder to investigate and convict them, and then you are sometimes found in strange places with HUGE garbage bags that you cannot explain, and….

OK, bad metaphor, but the it isn’t like daddy is the only commie in jr’s life, and I don’t recall reading that Jr was a member of the Federalists Society.

Spartacus on April 8, 2008 at 1:37 PM

A person is not his/her parents–especially when the person wasn’t raised by them.

baldilocks on April 8, 2008 at 12:49 PM

That’s true, and I agree that there are plenty of stronger links to Obama’s far-Left leanings, but it does raise more questions, particularly about his credibility.

Do you think Obama knew about his father’s convictions, or chose to ignore them? I find it hard to believe that as the author of Dreams From My Father he did not know.

How does he write an entire book about his father and never mention this? Didn’t he cite fighting Communism as the guiding force behind the Kenyan airlifts which brought his father to the U.S.? If he is the ardent anti-Communist he’d have us believe, wouldn’t one expect him to have noted how troubling it was to discover this about his father, or perhaps to note how the stated purpose of Kennedy policy failed in his father’s case?

Could this knowledge impact his own foreign policy decisions? Heck, this could be a reason he doesn’t believe that we should be in Iraq. Spreading Democracy and winning hearts and minds is a failed policy, dontcha know!

Buy Danish on April 8, 2008 at 2:21 PM

Buy Danish on April 8, 2008 at 2:21 PM

Ad infinitum.

baldilocks on April 8, 2008 at 2:30 PM

See the forest instead of the trees.

baldilocks on April 8, 2008 at 2:31 PM

See the forest instead of the trees.

baldilocks on April 8, 2008 at 2:31 PM

I think I see both in this case. It’s more evidence that he’s a fabulist (or pathological liar) and as you say “dangerous”.

Buy Danish on April 8, 2008 at 3:05 PM

I think Ed deserves some sort of award for the phrase, “congenital bolshevism”. I’m going to chuckle over that one for years.

As you say, Mr. Morrissey, there’s plenty of evidence supporting the claim that Barack Obama was raised and mentored by hard leftists, and may be one himself. We don’t need to know about his father, whom he scarcely knew.

philwynk on April 8, 2008 at 4:40 PM

In the words of the great Thomas Sowell:

Senator John McCain could never convince me to vote for him. Only Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama can cause me to vote for McCain.

A couple of simple thoughts. 1)Is there a single iota of evidence that Obama is anything but a Marxist? Something he’s written? Voting record? Personal, professional or family associations? 2) Is there any evidence that Obama has put effort into crafting a non-image that can morph into any image he wishes dependent upon the environment of the moment (e.g., the audience)?

I submit that the answers are 1) No. 2) Yes.

Respond accordingly.

Freelancer on April 8, 2008 at 10:41 PM

Obama’s childhood mentor, Frank Marshall Davis, was publicly identified as a member of the Communist Party USA (CPUSA). The record shows that Obama was in Hawaii from 1971-1979, where, at some point in time, he developed a close relationship, almost like a son, with Davis, listening to his “poetry” and getting advice on his career path. But Obama, in his book, Dreams From My Father, refers to him repeatedly as just “Frank.”

DANEgerus on April 7, 2008 at 8:25 PM

When people are abandoned as children, not unfrequently, they look for a substitute for the missing parent. By finding someone as much alike as the missing parent, whether through marriage or mentorship, it’s a way to prove that they’re worth loving afterall. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that Barack is drawn to people like Davis or Wright. They’re substitutes for Barack, Sr. The question is, what does Barack subconsciously or otherwise think he has to be or do to be loved by such people?

NNtrancer on April 8, 2008 at 11:17 PM

shazbat on April 7, 2008 at 8:53 PM

Dude. Awesome.

Ugly on April 8, 2008 at 11:31 PM

shazbat on April 7, 2008 at 8:53 PM

Apparently the most insightful. Great retort to all those who are quick to get squishy when dealing with the other side.

geckomon on April 9, 2008 at 9:59 AM

What am I missing here? LOL. (I’ll be nice and use Shazbat’s last paragraph).
“Yeah, a man is not responsible for who his dad is. Unless he takes responsibility by writing a whole goddamn book about how he longs to commune with his dad and feels as though he succeeded. Then the character and nature of the father becomes somewhat relevant.”
shazbat on April 7, 2008 at 8:53 PM (Speaks truth to nimnos.)
We can’t dismiss the power of genetics either but we don’t need to look at his dad to know that the guy is a Marxist, just scratch the veneer…

Christine on April 9, 2008 at 11:41 AM

The BHO Commie-radar is pinging…looks like, quacks like and is immersed in commie-doo, BHO is a commie and he sure can give those unity speeches! Just a chip off the old block!

el Vaquero on April 9, 2008 at 12:03 PM

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